Posted at: 10/29/2009 2:44 PM

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Southeast Minnesota No Longer in Drought

(ABC 6 NEWS) – It's not a welcome sight if you work in construction or if you're trying to harvest corn and soybeans, but it's not all bad.

For the first time since June of last year, southeastern Minnesota is no longer in moderate or severe drought status. 20 of the first 29 days of October have brought rain to the area.

While today's rain will push the harvest even farther behind schedule, it will relieve some of the pressure on trees and shrubs, which are more susceptible to insect and fungus problems when it's dry.

"Trees and shrubs are more susceptible to insect damage, fungus problems. We witnessed some fungus problems earlier-on this year, mainly maples had anthracnose, which is a fungus disease. They're much more susceptible to that when they're under these drought conditions," says Randy Berg of Berg's Nursery in Austin.

The National Weather Service says up to five inches of rain had fallen in parts of southeastern Minnesota between October 20th and 27th. That does not include the rain that has fallen today.